Preparing for green war in Washington
MIT joins fight to build best 'zero energy' house
On a crumbly, triangle-shaped vacant lot at MIT, a green house grows.
Students and volunteers take hammer to nail on weekends and spend weeknights poring over computerized renderings and floor plans. Their goal is an 800-square-foot "zero energy" house that is completely off the grid, powered only by the sun.
In October, the house will go to Washington, D.C., where it will join solar homes from 19 other universities at the National Mall as part of the Department of Energy's 2007 Solar Decathlon.
"The University of Colorado is the team to beat," said Kurt Keville, the adviser for the group from MIT, which is participating in the competition for the first time. Colorado won the last two competitions, with Cornell University close behind.
But MIT's Solar 7 team has a secret weapon of its own: the warm light wall.
The wall consists of one-foot-thick tiles, and each tile is like a sandwich. The bread slices are opaque plastic squares, the filling is water, and spread on one side of the bread is a thermal insulating gel that transfers the sun's heat from the outside, through the water, to the inside of the wall.
"It's incredible stuff," Keville said of the gel. "It's the poor man's Aerogel." Aerogel is known as the best thermal insulator, he said, but its cost is prohibitive.
In a structure where nearly everything has that "gee whiz" feel, another favorite of Keville's is the flooring. Beneath a bamboo surface will lay grooved "warmboard" subfloor, which will have heat pipes running through it. Radiant heat "is much more efficient and warmer," he said. "We'll see it in every house in the future."
The heat from the warm light wall complements the photovoltaic cells on the south-facing roof. Those cells must generate enough energy to power the house and all the accoutrements of today -- dishwasher, washer and dryer, oven, refrigerator, computer, television -- plus one from the future -- an electric car.
Keville said the solar panels generate about 9 kilowatts of energy per hour. Most households in Massachusetts use an average of 25 kilowatts daily, he said. The house will have an information panel in the kitchen that will give feedback from the 40 or so sensors in the house that monitor temperature, light, humidity, and energy use.
"One of the best ways to change human behavior is by giving people the information they need to change," said Corey Fucetola, the project's manager and an entering doctoral student in nanotechnology.
Contained in the 800 square feet are a bedroom, an office, a kitchen that opens to a dining area and living room, and a full bath with a laundry room. The house complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and will have a porch for al fresco dining. The bedroom and office will have telescoping pocket doors that, when opened, will allow the living space to be one great room.
Although the Department of Energy gives each team $100,000 for the project, and MIT is kicking in some funds, the team has to raise money to cover the remaining costs. Keville puts the total cost at $250,000 to $350,000. They also need to raise money to send team members to the competition.
They are raffling off a 2008
To get the house to Washington, the team will have to disassemble it into halves. The team brought in an expert to consult on the issue and had to change the design to accommodate his suggestions. Members also had to keep in mind federal highway standards for height, said Fucetola, because the house will be on two flatbed trucks and need to fit under bridges and overpasses.
Aside from design challenges, Fucetola said managing a truly "dynamic" group has been difficult. A core of about 20 people has been working on the project since its start in February 2006, but every weekend brings new helpers, and with each change of semester, students come and go. None of the MIT students is receiving course credit for the project.
The Solar 7 team has also enlisted a youth group from Boston to help with the construction, and students from the Boston Architectural College to help with interior and exterior design.
Fucetola and another team leader, Arlis Reynolds, have not been above recruiting local passersby. "If someone walks by and pauses," said Reynolds, "we run out and grab them to help out."
She said one of the best things about constructing a green house in Cambridge is the level of interest from the city's residents of all ages. The team's youngest member is a local 13-year-old boy who will be helping create an interactive house tour on the project's website, web.mit.edu/solardecathlon.
Once in Washington, the team will reassemble the house and give tours to the public during the 10-day event.
They expect at least 30,000 people will walk through the house. Teams compete in 10 categories, the most important being engineering and architectural design.
But the other areas can be fun. They must cook dinner for the judges to show off how well their energy-efficient appliances work; they have to wash and dry a load of towels; heat a shower's water to 110 degrees; and drive their electric car around Washington to see which car goes the farthest on its charge.
Fucetola said they plan to contact one of MIT's famous alumni, Oliver Smoot, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington.
Smoot is best known in Boston for being used as a unit of measurement across the Mass. Ave. bridge in an fraternity stunt.
Though team members haven't converted the house's blueprints from feet into smoots, they hope Smoot himself will come for a walk-through. 